


bogeyman

by Askance



Series: Terrible Things [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Horror, Young Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 02:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3674382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askance/pseuds/Askance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam says there's a monster under his bed. Dean's not having it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bogeyman

 

Sam's voice comes across the aisle between the beds, tripping on seven-year-old feet. “Dean,” he whispers, “there's something under my bed.”

 

This has been the last three weeks, every night, like clockwork. No sooner will Dad have shut the door on their tiny back room than Sam will call out to him and complain of the thing beneath his mattress. It's a phase. Dean went through it, too—but as soon as he learned that silver and sharp things could put a stop to anything in _his_ closet, the fear dissipated—turned to readiness. Not so for Sam—small sheltered Sam, who doesn't know the world yet. So he grits his teeth and tries to bear it, like a good big brother.

 

“There's nothing under your bed, Sammy,” he says, into the pillow, the same thing he says every night. “Go to sleep.”

 

For the first few weeks it worked, and Sam drifted off, and his little snores filled their tiny room; but these last few nights have been worse. Now he's insisting on—

 

“Sleep with you tonight?”

 

As always.

 

And as always, Dean sighs, hefts up the blanket with one arm, waits for the frantic pitter-patter of Sam's bare feet across the creaking wooden floor, the plunge of the mattress when he leaps onto it, as if the floor is burning him. Then the fifteen minutes of little-brother thrashing and rearranging, until—almost as soon as Sam seems assured of Dean's body next to his—he's out like a light.

* * *

 

“Daddy,” Sam says, feet turned inward in his pyjamas, “will you look under my bed for monsters?”

 

Gotta give him credit, the kid catches on fast.

 

Dean watches from the doorway as their father goes through the requisite bedtime motions, going to his creaking knees on the creaking floor, lifting up the bedskirt just enough to peer underneath.

 

“Nope,” he says, voice scattering among the dust bunnies in the empty space. “Nothing here, kiddo. Time for bed.”

 

Sam is fidgety, but he obeys, hopping up with that same fear in the spring of his step; Dean knows he doesn't quite believe he's safe.

 

Sure enough, minutes after lights out, the tiny voice: “Sleep with you?”

 

Covers up, pitter-pat, rustle, thrash, sleep.

 

Dean lies awake, feeling his brother's breathing against his back.

* * *

 

Sam won't go in their room today. Not even to get dressed. He sits stubbornly outside the door until Dean brings him his clothes and dumps them at his feet.

 

“You're being a baby,” Dean says, wrinkling his nose down at him.

 

Sam sticks out his tongue and then cuts out, “No, I'm not.”

 

“There's nothing under your bed, okay?” Dean says. He can feel Dad's presence in the room beyond the hall and clicks into secret-keeping mode. “Monsters aren't real. Besides, nothing can get you in the daytime.”

 

“It's under there,” Sam protests, louder with each word. “It  _is_ .”

 

“Dad looked under there, didn't he?” Dean reaches down, hauls Sam up by the arm and pulls off his pyjama shirt, stuffing a clean tee over his floppy-haired head. “If there was something on the floor under there, wouldn't he see?”

 

Sam scowls once his head is free of the tee-shirt.

 

“It's not on the  _floor,_ ” he says, with all the exasperation a seven-year-old can muster. “It hangs off the bed.”

 

“Sure it does,” Dean says, and goes into the kitchen for his breakfast.

 

"It's got big teeth."

 

"Sure it does."

 

* * *

 

“Dean, there's something under my bed.”

 

Tonight Dean sits upright, hugging his covers to his chest.

 

“No, Sammy,” he says, in an angry whisper. “There's nothing under there. Go to sleep. You're not coming over here tonight.”

 

Feeling firm and forceful he lays back down and clamps his eyes shut.

 

Until, that is, he hears the quiet whimpering coming from Sam's bed—the unmistakeable sound of little boy tears.

 

He clamps his eyes shut tighter, but there's no blocking it out.

 

“Jeez,” he mutters, throwing back his covers. “Fine.”

 

Sam is out of bed quick as lightning and into Dean's even faster.

 

“But this is the last time. You hear me?” Dean whispers, but Sam's already dozing, hands clutched in Dean's pyjamas, and Dean knows very well that he'll ask again tomorrow, and he'll give in again, too.

* * *

 

Another week like that and now Dean is trying to listen. Waiting until Sam has gone sleep-still next to him and keeping his ears peeled for any sign that he isn't just letting his imagination fly. Floors creaking, rustling, springs squeaking. There's none of it—only a very small shuffling one night that Dean puts down to the mice that live in the walls. After all, he watches them scurry out from underneath at the first light of morning and back into their nooks and crannies.

 

Sam looks exhausted. He gives his bed such a wide berth it may as well be a plague ship.

* * *

 

Tonight Sam is very quiet.

 

He brushes his teeth and gets ready for bed without a word about the thing under his bed, or anything else, for that matter. Dad gets down on his creaking knees to check, still—it's habit, at this point—and when he comes up dusty and empty-handed Sam doesn't say anything. Doesn't even hop into bed the way he normally does—he crawls in. Dean watches his feet linger on the floor.

 

Maybe tonight, finally, he'll sleep in his own bed.

 

With that thought comes a wave of tiredness, and Dean crawls under his own sheets a few moments later, letting himself sprawl while Dad mutters a goodnight from the doorway and switches off the lights. The door shuts and Dean holds his breath, hoping Sam won't—

 

“Dean.”

 

—speak.

 

He's almost too tired to be frustrated.

 

“Yeah, Sammy,” he says, in a sigh.

 

“Will you sleep over here tonight?”

 

His voice is very calm. Eerily so. Dean opens his eyes and turns his head to find his brother's little shape in the dark.

 

“What—with you? Over there?”

 

Sam nods, a noise against his pillow.

 

For a moment, Dean's annoyed—but then again, at least this is different. Maybe he's getting more comfortable over there after all. Maybe it's starting to dawn on him that there's nothing under the bed, nothing at all but dust and the dark.

 

Give it time, Dean thinks, give it time and he'll get over it. So he pulls back his covers and slips onto the floor and crosses the tiny aisle to Sam's bed, and slides under the sheets when Sam lifts them up.

 

He grins at Sam in the dark, and Sam looks right back at him.

 

“Look at you, huh?” Dean whispers.

 

Sam says nothing—just snuggles closer, closing his eyes.

 

“You know there's nothing under your bed, right?”

 

Sam nods his curly head. “I know.”

 

Dean ruffles his hair, turns onto his side, letting Sam burrow into his back.

 

He's just about to close his eyes when the floor across the room creaks almost imperceptibly and Sam whispers, chilly, against his neck:

 

“It's under your bed now.”


End file.
